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I have blogged before about Narcissistic Personality Disorder & the psychic effect it has on those around the Narcissist.

One of the most common problems people face after being involved in any context, with someone who is narcissistic (self centred…remember not everyone with selfish tendencies is classified narcissist but they may share some of the issues and create similar problems…resulting in similar fall out for those around them).

A narcissist is unconscious of the value and autonomy of people around them. In many ways their situation is like that of a child trapped in the “terrible twos” – complete with tantrums, deception and a childish belief that the world revolves around them.

Most grow out of this stage. It is the emergence of the Ego and in many ways the beginning of psychological autonomy. So it’s considered and is a natural growth phase. And beyond it the higher faculties are developed – empathy in particular and the ability to identify with others and to know humility.

In the narcissist something internal or external stunts this growth. Narcissistic brains tend to be highly intelligent and the process of maturation takes longer. It may be that certain stages are bypassed and emotional maturity is never achieved…it may be that being treated as an over achiever during their extended formative years means that those with narcissistic tendencies experience a longer period in which things can go wrong; that nature and nurture combine to inhibit the realisation of objective consciousness.

That’s just a theory. But as an autistic I have always found narcissists a curiosity and a proof that the theory about autistic people lacking empathy is not the case. I can only speak for myself in that and with my family members but early on I seemed to overly empathise. I never had tantrums. I never rebelled. And I think autistics with high functioning either develop so quickly through the ego phase or it’s so insignificant to our sense of reality (which is very abstract generally), we are the psychological opposite of narcissists in many ways.

I certainly feel narcissistic people seem to have a problem with me because their usual manipulations or attention seeking/self validating behaviours don’t exert the desired response from me.

Narcissistic personalities can be covert or overt and the abuse they perpetuate depends much on their type. Coverts can be very controlling and manipulative – mind games, martyr complexes and hyperchondria that means they can assume a victim role throughout life. Overts may be more obvious. Talking over you or verbally abusing you. They may even become physically abusive.

But the real damage is caused by the controlling behaviours however they are expressed. The genuine victim of a narcissist often questions their own sanity and wonders if they are the narcissist. And narcissists encourage that kind of blurring of the edges…where they end and you begin.

This kind of manipulation of reality that leaves you wondering just what you’re seeing and doubting yourself is called “gas lighting” and is a deliberate tactic in control and manipulation.

Of all abuses I think this gradual undermining of another’s sense of self and sense of reality has the most insidious side effects. It happens so gradually and is common to all narcissistic types and it casts the longest shadow in victims because of its very nature.

Addressing and removing yourself from s situation of physical or verbal abuse is easy to see. The damage done by the gas lighting really isn’t and it’s more prevalent because covert narcissists do the same thing.

Psychically this leaves the victim with the fear that they are the “bad one”; deficient in some way; unprofessional and to blame. A feeling that can take a very long time to move on from because of its nebulous nature.

Remember, the narcissist doesn’t ever stop to wonder if they are at fault. This is the chasm between the narcissist and others. Their sense of entitlement and lack of consciousness and self awareness. For them, it’s a given that the fault is someone else’s so if you are left doubting yourself, you are not the narcissist.

This kind of undermining of the victim creates problems though. Low self esteem. Anxiety. A tendency to over analyse or take on more responsibility in any given situation than is realistic. But worst I think is the sense of unreality. The victim buys into the narcissist’s view and sacrifices their own and regaining that centering isn’t easy.

On a psychic level this is the real damage of the psychic attack. There are implications on all levels and spiritually it can cause all kinds of ambivalence as the mind swings from idea to idea seeking a truth.

Many clients and students come to me to begin healing this sense of ungroundedness. And energy healing, meditation and certain rituals can certainly help. But it is as if you leave the relationship or connection with an addiction. An addiction to a person or a habit of allowing them to think for you. And that can feel disorientating or terrifying by turns for a long time. It takes time to heal and the first step is acknowledging you are not imagining it.

The psychological damage caused is what we would call a psychic attack and because you’re juggling the other attacks you may not notice it happening.

But despite the nightmare of it, if you choose the right tools to help you through, you can gain great insight into yourself and a unique perspective of the world and of life.

It creates an opportunity where you have to start again because you can’t go back to a point before happened. Starting from scratch with experience and wisdom means you have access to a greater potential happiness than you had in the past. It won’t be easy! But I can personally vouch for the fact that energy work, meditation and magick can make it easier!

It’s around now I start taking stock of where I am and where I want to be and what I should be doing now to make sure I end up where I want to be.

I guess you consider it like a time of new year resolutions but for witches the last harvest (Samhain or Halloween) marks the end of the year and I personally tend to begin my considerations from my birthday on 14th September…and implement them between 1st November and the Winter Solstice (just before Christmas!). So my Christmas celebration is more focused on successfully completing a cycle and starting the new one well. I don’t celebrate the numeric new year – for me it doesn’t have any energetic significance.

It was thinking about that, that made me realise non pagans have their own rituals for Christmas, New Year, Halloween and Easter that aren’t so dissimilar to my own. And although it may be seasonal energies that determine my cycles and how I align my life to them to make use of the natural tides…solar and lunar…most people have their own pattern to life an acknowledge certain days and anniversaries…bank holidays and so on…which essentially map their year in a unique way.

I am sure many people make use of these and add their own to the main ones…personal days of rembrance or significance…and impersonal ones too…the end of the financial year, the deadline for submitting their tax return…all kinds of dates form part of your annual cycle blueprint.

So anyone can use their own blueprint to include times of healing and cleansing, meditation, personal analysis, decision making, executing changes and hibernating. When the seasons change I tend to spend more time writing and reading and that’s the start of my “assessment” of the past year and the time I make note of changes to make and how I will make them.

It’s so much a part of my life that I don’t allocate time to it…it’s part of the natural flow of my life and it’s the acknowledgement of pagan fire festivals, solar and lunar tides over the last 28 years that has made it so much of my life.

On reflection I think it’s probably why I tend to be a high achiever…I tend to jettison time wasters or bad habits quickly and pay attention to what’s going on within and without myself, my life, my body and health, spiritual health and development and it really helps. There has never been a time I have seen a challenge in my life as insurmountable because my experience is that I roll with the punches in all areas of my life.

I would encourage other people to do similar…working into their own annual blue print. Start by writing down a list of significant dates or times in your personal year – birthdays and holidays as well…and then notice how the year is split into different parts…reflect on how what you do, enjoy and even eat changes seasonally and notice how changes coincide with different times on your blueprint.

Then think about what you naturally do or feel at those times of the year and how you might use that tendency to really make the most of things.

An example might be obvious that at the end of the financial year people decide about changes or developments to their business. In the summer they may feel more positive and use this time focus on their physical health and become more physically active. If you become bookish in the winter maybe choose the subject matter you’re going to focus on during that season and make a proper study of it.

Times that naturally lend themselves to family time like holidays and Christmas you might want to prepare for more mindfully and consider the real reasons you give and receive gifts and what you are celebrating.

We can give meaning to our lives and actions simply by paying attention to what we do. And while I advocate meditation and energy work because that’s what I teach through Mayastar Academy Online Natural Healing & Spiritual Development, I do believe a great deal can be achieved in our personal, professional, spiritual and health simply by becoming more aware of these things.

Self awareness & Mindfulness are definite the keys to experiencing the Wholeness of life!

Perfect weather for working in the garden. #barlowtyrie #sunlounger. Fledge sitting on the table with us. #Chihuahua honeys snuggling into my blanket. Pouring with rain but we’re cosy and dry under the veranda.

Listening to #KateRusby at the moment and #daisyrock on standby for when I’ve finished working…or a book…or some sketching…depending when my bf finishes work I may work here for a couple of hours yet 🙂 Writing a new blog, writing channelled information from my #spiritguide down…he talks in images sometimes so I like to write it up in a more understable way. And reading the #happinessproject book.

Heavenly fresh rain grassy smell mixed with dog smell and a bit of #chanel no 19…so homely and cosy.

I was recently asked this on my FB group page. Answering without sounding so kookie people following the page who hadn’t heard the term might think definition meant answering it quite carefully! Some new age ideas are very old ideas but with new “jargon” or extensions of existing beliefs and ideas not new to all religions but somehow “reframed” out of context so they do come over sounding a bit far fetched!

It’s a criticism I have for the “New Age” in general. Lots of ideas without much basis and without any subjective or objective reasoning behind them…let alone citing sources that have existed for thousands of years that say the same thing in different words. I am also guilty of not citing sources. I have a really good memory (part of my aspergers – high functioning autism). But I draw a blank remembering faces. And apparently names too. When I am reading fiction I notice I almost blank names as I read them! So even if I remember the book…the cover…where I was when I read it etc, I won’t have retained the author’s name. My mind seems to consider names very unimportant which is why most people in my life have nicknames I’ve given them. It’s my weird “name blindness”.

Anyway…back to the topic…in answering the question referring to similar or associated ideas the person was likely to know instead of me rambling on with a lot of new age jargon, I feel I explained the concept well.

As a teacher of energy healing, attunement based spiritual development courses and meditation based courses, I am very aware of ensuring my writing is accessible to people who have no previous experience.

Also, I am not running a cult teaching new words for ideas that promote exclusivity…or fudge the details so people don’t realise they are not being told anything. Those are pet hates of mine.

Also, as a teacher I don’t want to alienate people who hold religious beliefs that may be different to mine. I don’t teach religion and I don’t like it when people dress ideas and philosophies as being facts. We can be as objective in our explanations as possible – but even the best articulated philosophical deductions are open to debate. (I do feel my Autism helps me to communicate higher concepts in a more accessible way because I have to do it so much as my normal life experience. It definitely helps rather than hinders my work!).

I promote freedom and empowerment so I won’t dogmatically preach theories as facts. I know some new age writers do this…but I think real understanding is only available when you digest information for yourself.

I may be hypersensitive to it…aware sometimes that a blog is addressed to people with a prior knowledge…I always try to pitch my writing so it’s useful to people without prior knowledge; defining terms sometimes makes all the difference!
Anyway…enough about my motivations for the way I addressed the question! In my own words, the answer goes something like this…

Some people believe in reincarnation. Some believe some of us had previous lives on other planets or stars perhaps in a different dimension not a physical body, but a life or origin that’s not of this earth and possibly not of this plane (dimension).

People who feel that often refer to themselves as “starseeds”.

For me personally, I think it’s very possible other worlds and types of existance are viable in addition to being a humans on earth with some kind of soul that exists beyond our biological reality.

I also do agree with the concept because as I child I recall feeling “homesick”. My Aspergers may have been part of that; some people also believe some “advanced” spiritual beings choose to reincarnate to help others achieve spiritual wholeness and that High Functioning Autism or some types of epilepsy are a part of that.

That’s not a new idea but the term “starseeded” is a new age term for it. They may also use terms like “earth angels”, “indigos” and “crystal children” etc…depending on the current trend in ideas or new ideas about old ideas!

I do feel I lived somewhere else before I came here as a human. And that it wasn’t like this. And I miss it. I think of it as being “homesick for heaven”. But I don’t claim to understand what it was or where it was. I do feel the work I do now in this life was chosen before I came here. And I feel it will continue when I leave (die). But I don’t have proof of that. It’s just something I feel so strongly it feels more real than real to me. And I have since met other people who also remember the “before life”.

Some people would suggest my feelings are born of delusion…failing to grasp that the Asper brain is not prone to delusion or irrationality; they are experiences more common to people whose beliefs are a reaction to their emotions. Rather than someone whose mind is hyper-rational. Our problems in being understood usually come from our capacity to naturally experience and express our experiences in a far more abstract way than our lower-functioning peers.

This capacity for abstract understand is why many High Functioning Autistics display unusually advanced language skills, may be drawn to mathematics and tend to show greater creativity. Not all share the same special skills or special interests. But I have no doubt that the work I do teaching energy healing and my magickal ‘career’ are advanced by my Aspergers in ways people of a neurotypical function wouldn’t experience. I wouldn’t trade my High Functioning brain for one that didn’t see music, feel colours or understand how to reweave karma (spells) the way I do. My work through www.mayastar.netand www.mayamagickal.net absolutely relies on my mind being as it is!

The long and short of it is some people believe people who are born with Higher Functioning Autism or Epilepsy (I have Temporal Lobe Epilepsy) were “god touched” thousands of years ago. That’s the phrase they would have used here centuries ago. And only relatively recently have the insights, perspectives and non-confirmity of people like me been negatively interpreted as a deficiency or fault.

This is beginning to change. With High Functioning Autistics being head hunted for their unique abilities especially in identifying problems quickly or irregularities in (for example) programming scripts that a Neurotypical wouldn’t be able to do so accurately or quickly.

And of course, the New Age has seen a revival in old spiritual and philosophical understandings that our uniqueness is a gift: an extra abilty not a disability!

I’m just uploading my latest Whispering Witch video to my youtube channel. It’s about applications for the Goddess Aradia Spell which is on the current special offer…but I had to end it with a massive THANK YOU to those people who are watching my videos, liking them, giving me feed back and subscribing to the channel at www.youtube.annalouisemay.net

I was really nervous about using this medium because I have Aspergers (a type of higher functioning autism) and sometimes it means, I don’t want to talk. I couldn’t see a way I would be able to make a channel I could use consistently in a way that would be useful. Before my dad died last year, it was something I told him I really needed to do as my business is online and as other networks are become less useful, youtube has gone from strength to strength. I wondered if maybe I might even be able to just use it post up some of my music…but couldn’t see a way of using it that would be particularly useful for my work given my limitations.

Well…the ASMR trend was the answer. And although the channel’s only been running a month, or 3 weeks, it has 45 subscribers. I don’t pay to advertise it or anything – I so share it on my other networks – but to put that in context, my WordPress Blog which I spend a lot more time on, has 30 followers. It does get more views but people don’t tend to subscribe.

Some of the videos I’ve posted have had a much higher number of views than I would have expected. And when I happened upon the ‘analytics’ page on youtube recently I was stunned to find almost 6000 minutes of view time has been racked up in the short time the channel’s been running.

I’ve had good feed back and I’m surprised that I’ve found a niche I can cater to; my style of vlogging is not typical but it’s gone down well – much better than I hoped.

So I post every night. And I will continue to. And thank you sooooo much to those who are already watching my channel…thank you to those who have shared it with other people…thank you for the feedback and thank you for staying tuned. I’m really, really pleased and surprised.

I would be most grateful to anyone who would share this with their friends…anyone who might be interested in my work. I will quote from the ‘blurb’ that comes up in the info area of my blogs and tells you a bit about it…

I have Aspergers (a type of high functioning autism) means I’m more comfortable using ASMR “whispered conversation”. The mutual increased focus this initiates allows a more intimate communication & natural connection.

My intention is to use whispered conversation to provide a unique & informal style that will be relaxing to watch, pleasant to hear & with subjects accessible to viewers.

I plan to upload various vids; some may be general or personal updates; others may be more informative, based around my spiritual & magickal work; general chats & reviews. Also, ‘streams of consciousness’…with no fixed ‘subject’.

Please be aware, I have photosensitive epilepsy and when it gets late and I’m winding down, sometimes this affects me so I tend to wear sunglasses indoors – it’s not an attempt to look extremely cool! That’s just a side effect! I’m aware this looks kind of weird to some people but it means I don’t need meds to control seizures so I use what works for me and doesn’t have side effects.

NOTE: Although Whispering is used in ASMR, I use this technique because it is more comfortable for my autism & is a natural part of my night when I’m winding down for bed. More info on my intro vid – https://youtu.be/dNPMSkX5q9I”

If this sounds at all compelling, please tune in and please share the love! XXX